Troop Communication

[Beavah]

I'm curious what everybody does for communications within your troop. Information on outings, fundraisers, what to bring, when to sign up and all dat. Both what the kids use to communicate and what the adults use, eh? (and what each half communicates about).

 

Email? Phone? Newsletter? Bulletin Board? Announcements? Meetings? Web? Semaphore? Yah, and any rules on who can communicate or how?

 

Let's share what we've found works, and what our struggles are.

[John-in-KC]

Son's troop first used SPL email to youth (or their parents in their behalf), with SM email to parents as backup.

 

Let's be honest, folks: How many of our kids do we trust to accurately communicate the right message everytime?

 

Subsequently, we've migrated to a yahoo groups listserv.

 

HTH.

[Lisabob]

For the boys: The troop uses patrol calls. This seems to work out about half the time. The other half, only when the SM follows up with the SPL & PLC to get feedback on who did/didn't make the calls. Since this is not something our SM of the last couple of years has done, well, you can guess the results.

 

For the adults: Email, no rules about who can/can't. But not everyone (like our SM) reads email and then there's a tendency for people not to update their address books so that new members get left off and people who haven't been around in years get left on. We have a website but that's only helpful if someone is serious about updating and maintaining it. Face to face at weekly troop meetings seems to be the most reliable form of communication among the adults. I don't know about all of you but I really dislike phone calls, esp. to cell phones, as a means of regular communication. You never know who/what you are interrupting and many people do NOT seem to turn them off in situations where they wouldn't want to be interrupted. I just dislike that.

 

Some of our perenial difficulty with communication is boys not being responsible or interested in conveying information. Some of this is that not all adults set a very good example on this front! THat bugs the heck out of me (it isn't rocket science) but then I remember that the same adults who tend to be the worst at communicating information to groups are also sometimes the ones the boys connect with best on a one-to-one basis. So I try to take slow deep breaths and ignore that prickle of irritation! Oh and I volunteer to do a lot of the communication stuff because at least then I know it got done.

[Crew21_Adv]

Beavah,

 

 

Greetings!

 

Communications and planning seem to go hand in hand.

 

I preach Communications at every Troop PLC, asking if they have their patrols emails and cell phone numbers, written in their Patrol Leaders Handbook. Almost the same for the Crew, asking them to write the same items in their Venturing Leaders Manual.

 

The adult leaders in the Troop who send emails out to a Troop wide distro are usually the SM, ASMs and Outdoor Activities Chair. Most all of these emails begin with a couple of sentences before we start typing the business.

 

"If you don't know what is happening, Ask your Scout. If you Scout does not know what is happening, have him ask his Patrol Leader. If the Patrol Leader does not know what is happening, request him to ask the SPL"

 

We may end in a joke, "If the SPL does not know what is happening, we are all in trouble"

 

Then we proceed with business in the email.

 

I will do the same for my Venturing Crew. However, I have one youth Venturing Crew Officer, that likes to forward Hoax or urban legend mail (AOL will send 7 cents to the American Cancer Society, Ossama Bin Laden has been captured.. etc,etc) This young Venturer seems to believe everything she reads, cries in sympathy for the whales, then forwards it to all the Crew youth, adults and parents in good faith. Later for someone to tell her, it was a hoax/urban legend email. But, that is a price we will have to pay, for using email to communicate.

 

Finally, our adults always cc email the respective parents, or at a minimum other adults when corresponding with a youth. Most of the time these emails are to coordinate advancement or program planning. I often receive emails from Venturing youth, but I will respond and cc their parent.

 

Scouting Forever and Venture On!

Crew21 Adv

[hotdesk]

As a troop we have several methods we use for communications

 

1) we have a troop website. sometimes it's updated and other times it is not. it really depends on who the site administrator is and how much time they have.

 

2) we have a monthly newsletter that is mailed out to all parents in the troop. it contains information about upcoming trips, recent achievements, and fundraising

 

3) we make closing announcements. this announcements are about upcoming outings, service hours, eagle projects, and any youth training coming up. the announcements are geared toward the scouts not the adults

 

4)when plans change or sign up is ending we have Patrol Leaders call their patrol. They are instructed to do so by the Senior Patrol Leader either by a phone call or at the Patrol Leader's Council meeting

 

5) emails. our Troop Secretary emails the Committee meeting notes to all troop adult leaders right after the meeting. the Committee Chairman emails the agenda one week before the meeting. the scoutmaster or an assistant scoutmaster might email anything that happened at the Patrol Leader's Council that parents need to know or any announcements that have been made that parents need to know

 

6) we usually do not hand out flyers. we hope that with the newsletter and website that information easily flows without having to waste additional paper. however, sometimes we do handout flyers about the upcoming activity.